Trump says Iran deal could be reached in days as truce holds

Donald Trump put a hard clock on a fragile diplomatic opening, saying a deal with Iran could be reached in “two or three days” even as the ceasefire between Israel and Iran looked vulnerable after a weekend of renewed strikes. The question was not just whether Washington and Tehran could announce an agreement, but whether Israel would stand down, whether Iran would keep its pause, and whether the fighting in Lebanon would be folded into any deal.

Trump said the talks were in the final stages and that any agreement would not allow nuclear weapons. He also said the Strait of Hormuz would reopen “immediately” after a deal, a sign that the administration was tying the diplomacy not only to nuclear limits but to the flow of global shipping through one of the world’s most sensitive chokepoints.

The credibility test was immediate. Israel and Iran exchanged strikes again over the weekend after an April ceasefire, briefly threatening the truce. Reuters reported that Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike back after Iran fired missiles at Israeli targets in retaliation for an attack near Beirut. Trump said, “We are very close to a final deal with Iran. It is going to be a good deal. I don’t want it to blow up because of what is happening now.”

Even so, the deal still appeared unfinished in the ways that matter most. A senior U.S. official said earlier that an agreement was expected in the coming days, but the wording was still being finalized and there was no Iranian confirmation of the framework. That left the core bargain unresolved: what exact limits Iran would accept, what the United States would guarantee, and which side would be prepared to enforce it if the truce frayed.

Tehran’s stance added another layer of difficulty. Iran has said any deal with Washington had to include a ceasefire holding in Lebanon as well, because Israel’s campaign there against Hezbollah remained a major point of friction in the wider talks. Israel’s military said it had not yet been directed to attack Iran further after the latest exchange, while Iranian Revolutionary Guards said they had concluded their latest military operation against Israel.

The gap between diplomatic optimism and battlefield restraint remained narrow. Trump had described the arrangement as “largely negotiated” in late May, but the unresolved terms, the Lebanese front and the lack of Iranian confirmation all showed that a deal announced in days would need more than momentum to be real. It would need written language, coordinated restraint from Israel and Iran, and a ceasefire that held long enough to survive the next strike order.